Attics
by 27dayz
Summary: Attics are strange things. They not only hide the mememtos of our past, but also the secrets that we would be ashamed if anyone found out. For one Rocket Agent, one of those secrets is brought to light, but she would rather it stay hidden in the attic.


**AN: Here is a new fanfic that I just wrote in the last three hours when I was supposed to be in bed two hours ago -_- why do I do this to myself lol? Anyways, this came about quickly and this is the first time I've used the second person. Ever. It just came out and I kinda like it ;). Hope you do to!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon or anything associated with it.**

**Attics**

Attics are strange things. They're like brains. They start out empty, but as the years pass, they begin to fill up with junk the same way the brain fills up with memories. Attics store mementoes. For example, the broken skis that you only used once are sitting in a corner behind that gaudy old antique mirror that Aunt Margaret left you in her will. When you see the skis, you think of that time you went up to the mountains and fell off the chairlift. In fact, you can still feel a dull ache in your leg in the spot where it broke. Then there's the old baby toys sitting in a box in front of the television set that mysteriously broke after your dad's team failed yet again to make it to the playoffs. Don't you remember a simpler time when your life revolved around having tea with Teddy and Mr. Bunny? Or when your worst fear was that creepy porcelain clown with the disturbing make-up? In your mind, you can still hear your Mommy telling you that it's not real and that it won't eat you (even though you swore that it inched closer and closer and its mouth grew wider and wider at night).

Memories, good and bad, can be found in attics and brains. Not to mention secrets. The type of things that you would die if anyone ever found out. Those are also quite commonly found in attics and brains. And you've just discovered one of these secrets, didn't you? It's right there in your hands.

You found it after you got news that your dad died of a heart attack. You weren't too choked up about it. He wasn't much of a father. He proved that after he married the hag number one, the one that sent you off to boarding school, shuffled away like some dirty secret. He didn't object, even though you were his only daughter and you were still reeling after your mother's untimely death and needed him more than ever. Not that you're still bitter about that or anything.

Anyways…he had a heart attack and his fourth wife called you so that you could go through the junk he left behind. You've never met his fourth wife before, but you're not surprised to find out that she's just like hag number one, only with bigger knockers. You only met his third wife briefly, once, a month before you ran away at fourteen. You lament to yourself about your father's horrendous taste in women. Your mother was the only good choice he made. You can barely remember her; she died in an accident when you were five. But you're convinced that she was the most beautiful person, inside and out, that you had ever seen.

You're getting off topic again. So you're going through the attic, under strict instructions from hag number three that you're not to take anything without asking, when your partner calls you over. You enlisted him to help you sift through the junk, even if you had to explain to him about your dysfunctional family. He was nice about it and even told you a bit about his family so you didn't feel so bad, but you still ended up feeling bad. In fact, every time you think of your partner growing up with his abusive, alcoholic father after his mother died, you want to take him and hold him. Actually, that's what you did. You threw your arms around him and apologized for thinking that you had it so bad when he had it ten times worse. He had stiffened in your embrace, but then relaxed. You felt him kiss your hair and whisper to you. You raised your head and he accidentally planted a kiss on your lips when he meant to give your hair another kiss. He's surprised and you're surprised, but damn did it feel good. He looked cute, like a stantler in the headlights, so you kissed him again. Then the kissing got deeper, more passionate, and then you were ripping off his uniform and he had pulled your dress off. Then…well, you could go on for ages about where that went, but you won't because there are other things that you should be talking about right now…

So as you were saying, you were sifting through a box of baby toys and plotting revenge on that scary-ass clown when your partner calls you over. You have to duck and move the broken skis out of the way to get to him. He's sitting behind that ugly old mirror, hunched over a box of pictures. You pull out one and you immediately smile.

You are three-years-old and you're sitting with the most beautiful woman in the world. You have her bright violet eyes and her long, golden locks. There's hardly any interference from your useless father's genes, and for that you are thankful. She's kissing you, that beautiful woman who you point out as your mother to your partner. He says that you look just like her and he kisses your temple as if he's unsure if this is allowed. You turn and kiss him, letting him know that it is most definitely allowed. Then he looks closer at the picture and tells you to do the same. He points at your mother's chest, and before you can scold him for staring at your mom's breasts, you see what caught his eye. It's the red 'R' on her chest. It's the same 'R' that you see on your chest every day. You stare, mouth open for a moment, hardly daring to believe it, but it's true. Your mother was a Team Rocket agent. That perfect woman, who you loved more than anything, was a criminal.

You stare at the picture for a moment and decide that you don't care. She was still your mother and you still love her more than anything. In fact, you're even a little proud that you followed in her footsteps. You're just like her. You reach for another picture, expecting to see another blissful moment wrapped up in your mother's loving embrace. That's not what you see. Your mother isn't in the picture, but you are. And so is someone else.

You stare at the photograph with wide eyes and a gaping mouth. It isn't possible. It can't be.

"Is that who I think it is?" your partner asks, nearly as shocked as you are, but you can't answer. All you can do is stare.

You're still three-years old. You're standing there, with your blond hair in braids and your eyes shining in delight. Your smile is huge and genuine. You're wearing a purple dress that matches your eyes, and on the front, there is a nametag and in blue crayon, you had attempted to write your own name. You're standing outside a building, in front of a rocket stature, and the words 'Rocket Day-Care' are on a sign above you. And you're not alone.

You blink as you try to make the other girl go away, but it doesn't work, of course. She's still there. She's the same age as you and she looks just as happy as you do. She's beaming up at the camera, her sapphire blue eyes sparkling as she grins up at the camera. Her red hair is out to the side in its signature curl, but there's a pretty blue bow tied at the end of it. It matches her dress. Like yours, her nametag is written in crayon, and in pink writing you read her messy, three-year-old scrawl: 'JeSSiE'.

Your arm is thrown over her shoulders and hers is thrown across yours. You are both beaming. You look like best friends, like you were meant to be there, posing together.

But of course, that's impossible. You and Jessie never met when you were three. You met when you were eleven. You remember seeing her for the first time, dressed in an awful brown dress, probably made from rags. She had a tattered old backpack slung over her shoulder. All her worldly possessions were stuffed into that one backpack. At the time, you couldn't comprehend how someone could have so little. Your father was an oil tycoon. You never went without. When you saw Jessie there, in her torn dress and raggedy old backpack, you felt a twinge of something inside you. Later, you would learn that it was pity. You tried to befriend Jessie. You offered her your old clothes, old dolls. She accepted them gratefully. Your friends couldn't understand why you were helping the poor street urchin. They judged you, said that you were wrong for hanging around with rift-raft like that. You felt bad, so you did the easy thing. You stopped hanging around with Jessie. She confronted you. She was never one to just let things go. She asked you why and you, surrounded by all your friends, told her that it was because you were better than her because it's what they wanted to hear. Her eyes filled with tears, but she did not cry. She screamed that she didn't want your charity and walked away. You felt terrible. Despite Jessie's social status, she was still the best, most honest friend you had ever had. You consoled yourself by repeating your mantra, that you were better. You believed it. Jessie set the bar. You had to be better than her to prove that you were right when you walked away from her all those years ago. To prove that you weren't just a weak little girl who gave into her so-called friends without a second thought.

She became your enemy, your rival. She wasn't your friend. She went out of her way to make your life miserable and you did the same to her.

"You were friends?" your partner asks, and you shake your head.

"No. Never," you say, slamming the picture back down. You can never be friends with her. To be friends with her would mean that you would have to admit what you did all those years ago. You would have to admit to weakness. You can't do that. You have to be stronger. Better.

You close the box and push it back. For a moment, you want to leave it there. Then you wonder about all of the other pictures. Were there more of you and your mother? You and Jessie? You're curious. These pictures are the only link you have to a happier time, when your mother was alive and you weren't alone, when you could be friends with whoever you pleased and didn't have to worry about looking weak, when you were happy…

You lie and tell yourself that you are happy now. You catch yourself. You're a thug, a criminal, stealing happiness from others. You don't have a family. Your parents are dead. You don't have any friends. None. Just enemies. The only good thing you've got going for you is the young man sitting next to you, gazing at you with concern.

"I'm taking the box," you tell him, "I have to go through the rest of it."

And you would go through it, but you would go through it alone. There are secrets in that box, secrets you don't want the rest of the world to know, secrets that make you seem weak.

You will open that box, later in the privacy of your dorm room at Team Rocket Headquarters. You will see more pictures of your mother in uniform, posing with her partners. Later, you will find out that one of her partners, the beautiful purple-haired woman, was the mother of your rival and died when Jessie was just four-years-old. You will also later find out that the other partner, a short, blond woman who was always overlooked by their boss betrayed both her partners and caused their deaths. You won't find this out for another couple of years, when hag number three calls you and tells you that she found your mothers journal. You will find other pictures when you open the box as well. There will be some of your father, back when he actually gave a damn about you. There will be some of some other Day-Care Kids. You will recognize one of a shy little green-haired boy who blushed as your younger self kissed his cheek. You will think that it's a huge coincidence that you're partnered with him in the present, but once you realize that both of your mothers were Team Rocket agents and that both of you were enrolled in a Team Rocket-funded Day Care, its not that much of a stretch.

And of course, in the box, you will find more pictures of you and Jessie, starting back in your infant days when your mothers would put you both in the same bassinet to nap together, and ending when you were four years old and Jessie and her mother moved away. You will conclude that you and Jessie weren't friends when you were three. You weren't even best friends.

You were sisters. Not by blood, but who said you needed the same DNA to be related? You were sisters.

And that is a fact that you will never, ever reveal to anyone. Because the day you told her that you were abandoning her for your cooler friends was the day you turned your back on your sister. It's a fact that you will store in the back of your mind, hidden behind memories of Aunt Margaret's old mirror, disastrous ski trips, and sleepless nights of clown-induced torture. It's a secret, locked away in the attic of your mind that you would die if anyone ever discovered it like the way that you discovered that picture, that memento, in your parents' old, full, attic.

End

**AN: So there it is. Obviously, this story is about Jessie's rocket rival and the secrets she finds hidden in her parents' attic. Lately, I've come to the conclusion that Butch and Cassidy aren't as insufferable as they appear. Also, I've constructed a very real, very twisted past full of secrets that involves most of the gang, and I'm hoping to begin writing about it soon. I hope you all enjoyed this piece and please let me know what you think about it.**


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